COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -Several playoff-bound MLB teams wish they could match what Ohio State is doing: String together shutouts.
The No. 9 Buckeyes haven’t given up a point in two games heading into Saturday night’s game at Indiana.
It’s been 36 years since the last time an Ohio State team put up three shutouts in a row. The No. 1-ranked 1973 squad, which featured defenders Van DeCree and Randy Gradishar, beat Northwestern 60-0, Illinois 30-0 and Michigan State 35-0 in succession on the way to a 10-0-1 mark – the only blemish a memorable 10-10 deadlock with rival Michigan.
The current Buckeyes (3-1, 1-0 Big Ten) also had a 30-0 win over Illinois, manhandling the Illini last Saturday. That came a week after routing Toledo 38-0 at Cleveland Browns Stadium.
Holding the opposition pointless is always the point, but it’s not easy to keep doing it.
man Doug Worthington said. “Any defense in the country, they’d be lying if they said they didn’t want a shutout. So it’s something that we would love to have.”
Indiana (3-1, 0-1) is no pushover. The Hoosiers come in averaging 28 points, 159 rushing yards and 239 passing yards a game.
Dexter Larimore, an Ohio State noseguard/tackle from Merrillville, Ind., knows the Hoosiers better than just about anybody. He knows they haven’t beaten the Buckeyes in the last 14 meetings. But he also has watched film of the Hoosiers’ first three wins and last week’s narrow 36-33 loss at No. 22 Michigan’s Big House.
“I’m really happy for coach (Bill) Lynch and (his players),” Larimore said. “Honestly, they come out with everything. For protection they like to leave a lot of guys in and let their quarterbacks and wide receivers kind of (do the) work. So you know it’ll be a tough job for the defensive line.”
Still, Illinois had a volatile offense and the Buckeyes never let the Illini get inside the Ohio State 29.
“The good thing about our guys defensively is they go into every game wanting a shutout and then they play each play,” Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel said. “Wanting a shutout is in the back of their minds, but they go out and play every play and if it doesn’t go great for a while, they keep playing every play.”
ames Laurinaitis, Malcolm Jenkins, Marcus Freeman and Donald Washington.
“They seem to be a neat group in that there’s no ‘stars’ or people that everyone’s talking about and they look to each other,” Tressel said. “They look to the whole crew.”
The defense has prospered because of a muscular front line, a bunch of first-year starters at linebacker and more youngsters in the secondary.
Safety Kurt Coleman, the defense’s most decorated player after being selected second-team All-Big Ten a year ago, won’t play against Indiana. The Big Ten suspended Coleman on Monday for a late hit in the final minute of the Illinois game.
It’s not as if shutouts are easy to get. Ohio State hadn’t totaled three shutouts in its last five seasons.
“I’m always surprised when that kind of happens,” Larimore said. “Because for that to happen, the defense has to play a perfect game. Obviously, we’ve just been playing as a team.”
The Ohio State record is an incredible 13 shutouts in a row, in the last seven games of 1899 and the first six of 1900.
For today’s Buckeyes, putting up a zero remains an objective, but not the bottom line.
“It’d be great. But we really can’t focus on that too much,” Worthington said. “We can’t really worry about the score. We can’t think about the end of the game. We have to make sure we play every play. If you don’t do that, you’re going to get a little bit too cocky. That could be a mistake and it could be a blowout on Indiana’s part, because they’re a great offense.”
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